Six Meditations on Pain

These six meditations on pain follow on from a newsletter I wrote about pain within yoga culture. Many of us were taught to push through discomfort and to ignore pain. If a practice hurts, that’s information worth listening to.

Below are six suggestions for acting on that information. The first three are for your own practice. The last three are for those of you who teach.

If you would like to read the longer letter first, you can do that here.

For Practitioners

1. Pain is a Messenger

As the saying goes, “Don’t shoot the messenger”. Pain is your body’s way of asking you to make a different choice.  Sometimes this involves a course correction. Instead of ignoring or being annoyed by this message, can you become curious and investigate?  What is this message asking me to do, or not do?  Your body may be asking you not to do a particular movement.  This does not necessarily mean you will never do this movement again, just not right now! You may need to modify the movement by making it smaller or practicing more slowly, or through changing the vector of the movement (such as how far you extend your arms).  Sometimes, we can experience pain in a movement simply because we have not prepared our body through warming up.

2. No Pain is Your Gain

Our cultural indoctrination would have us believe that if we push through pain, we’ll progress our agenda.  This is where being able to discern between “good” and “bad” pain is so important. Good pain may be intensified sensations of releasing or opening the body or the edgy uncomfortable feeling of developing greater strength.  Bad pain is almost always localized pain that we can point to.  Sharp, acute, throbbing, stabbing or radiating pain are clear warnings.  Localized pain is usually a signal that we are damaging or reinjuring a joint, ligament or muscle.  The no pain, no gain mentality is often paired with the belief that if we don’t push through these sensations, we’re being lazy and complacent or worse, we’re a quitter!  Sadly, ignoring pain signals often leads to a frustrating cycle of injury, recover, reinjury rather than the steady movement towards mobility, strength and stamina.

3. Discovering Your Unconscious Higher Allegiance

When I work with people who have a history of injuring themselves through practicing yoga, I am always interested to tease out the unconscious higher allegiance that’s driving this behavior. An unconscious higher allegiance may be their loyalty to a method, tradition or even to a particular teacher, even when this alliance has proven itself to be harmful.  Higher allegiances can include the desire to look a certain way, to “keep up” with everyone else, or to deny the reality of aging by practicing as if you’re thirty when you’re sixty.  Liberating yourself from a higher allegiance requires honesty and developing greater trust in your own innate wisdom.

For Teachers

4. Set the Stage

If you are a teacher, you can vastly reduce the chances that people will strain or injure themselves in your class by setting agreements at the beginning of every class, course, intensive or retreat.    Encouraging people to listen and be loyal to their inner perceptions is key.  Then give explicit permission that it’s okay to come out of postures and practices at any time, to modify or vary a practice (for any reason) and to ask for help when needed.  These agreements set the stage for a safer, kinder, and more joyful group experience.

5. Build the Student’s Resources

People often come to yoga with little understanding of their structure and even fewer resources in knowing what to do when they are uncomfortable.  Asking questions like, “What might you do to find greater comfort in this posture or practice?” opens the door for self-inquiry.  Then, if the student appears at a loss for solutions, make suggestions such as “What if you tried it this way?  Does it feel better, worse, or the same?”  These kinds of questions move the student towards their own inner reference, rather than perceiving the teacher as the first (and possibly only) reference point.

6. Pain Recidivists

There are some people whose beliefs about pain run so deep that no matter what is said or demonstrated, they continue to choose practices that cause pain and injury.  They will consistently go too far, move too aggressively and stay too long.  These will be the folks who, when asked, “How is this practice feeling?” will say, “Fine” and when pressed, they’ll admit that what they really mean is “I am in pain and that’s fine!” For these hard-core recidivists, I ask if they are willing to make a contract with me, that while in my class they will not do any practice that causes pain or discomfort.  If it is an intensive, I will ask for this contract to extend over the length of our time together.  This agreement usually involves radically reducing the range of movement, especially in planes such as extension. Sometimes, it means overriding bad decisions, such as the person with the bulging disc who flings themselves into Plough Pose. I have witnessed many breakthrough moments through this approach with most people radically reducing or eliminating their pain symptoms.

What were you taught that your body later disagreed with? I would like to hear from you.
Join the conversation with your thoughts or curiosities under the original letter. 

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